Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Your Comments on my Guantanamo Column

My Sunday column is about the remaining 270 prisoners at Guantanamo, which is a national disgrace. One reason is simply the injustice of keeping innocent people in abusive conditions — a far harsher regime than that faced by convicted murderers in the United States. The inmates at Guantanamo haven’t had visits or phone calls with family members for more than six years of confinement, and the authorities constantly play games with them. For example, one of those I mention in the column is al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan who is suffering from extreme health problems. The authorities boasted of giving him glasses. But, according to his lawyer, the glasses are distance glasses, when he is in confined to a tiny cell. What he desperately wants is reading glasses.

My doubts about the official line has steadily grown, partly because of the number of military lawyers and officers who have come forward and said that Guantanamo is a travesty. I was also shaken when I wrote about the case of Sean Baker, an American soldier who was asked to play a Guantanamo inmate in a training exercise. The other soldiers didn’t realize that he was only playing his role and beat him so badly that he is permanently disabled — and the military has treated him wretchedly as well.

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Muslamics?

The term Muslamics is a cross between Muslims and Islamics, and makes light of the many erroneous labels placed upon Muslims.

As Muslims living in America, we are part of a daily struggle to define ourselves and forge new identities, at a time when our community, and specifically Muslim activists, are in the limelight. Part of this struggle is to reclaim our language.

We are proud to be Muslims and we believe it is part of our duty to convey to others who we are and what we stand for. Therefore, we will take the name Muslamics - originally used as a derogatory term against Muslims - and expose the ignorance behind it, as well as give it a new and positive meaning.